ABSTRACTMany of us went into research to do something good—to cure cancer or to save the world—and in engineering biology, we really are doing that, solving some of the world's most pressing problems, from plastic degradation to chemical manufacture to built‐environment solutions to next‐gen therapeutics. Or, as academics, we think we are doing these things. We do the research. We publish the research. Job done. But are we actually having the impact we set out to have? Or is your next big (or small) publication one of the reasons your invention never makes it to market? This short article will help you see your research in the context of real‐world innovation and give you an insight into what it takes to turn that academic work into something we can hold and use. We will look at some fundamentals of patents and what you, as scientists, should be aware of. We will then look at innovation trends in engineering biology across a range of sectors—what are the hot fields in engineering biology commercialisation and what can we use this information for. If you’re not thinking about IP, you’re not thinking about impact.

Breakthroughs in engineering biology will solve the challenges facing humanity, by harnessing life itself. Standing in the way of these breakthroughs are the technical challenges of collecting the requisite data. Data variability and reproducibility problems, mean the odds are stacked against emerging biotechs. Automation has long been known to solve both problems; Let a robot do the pipetting and get reproducible data with less hands-on time. Although transitioning to automation has clear benefits, it can introduce additional complexity if done incorrectly. Analytik Jena UK has focused on supporting this transition to automation. We have found the combining of industry expertise with the biology know-how at the bench is paramount. Great automation should empower the scientist. Scientists should be trained on how to harness their automation. Through industry-customer relationships, we have successfully automated platforms for building DNA to antibody development. Through this partnership, we can enable a smooth translation of engineering biology to scalable industrial solutions. In this communication we have highlighted some successful examples where translating engineering biology workflows onto automation has proven beneficial, paving the way to industry ready solutions.

Since joining SynbiCITE, the national centre for translating synthetic biology, a decade ago as the lone analytical chemist, the centre has gone from limited lab space to playing its part in securing funding, growth and development of more than 50 companies focused on engineering biology. Synthetic biology has proved to be viable technology, with the number of sustainable companies continuing to grow in this field. This communication provides a personal perspective of 10years in translational engineering of biology, as seen from the experimental analytics position and working with the companies contributing to the growth of the UK bioeconomy.

The field of protein engineering has seen tremendous expansion in the last decade, with researchers developing novel proteins with specialised functionalities for a range of uses, from drug discovery to industrial biotechnology. The emergence of computational tools and high‐throughput screening technology has substantially sped up the process of protein engineering. However, much of the expertise required to engage in such projects is still concentrated in the hands of a few specialised individuals, including computational biologists and structural biochemists. The international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition represents a platform for undergraduate students to innovate in synthetic biology. Yet, due to their complexity, arduous protein engineering projects are hindered by the resources available and strict timelines of the competition. The authors highlight how the 2022 iGEM Team, ‘Sporadicate’, set out to develop InFinity 1.0, a computational framework for increased accessibility to effective protein engineering, hoping to increase awareness and accessibility to novel in silico tools.

We start the fifth volume of Engineering Biology at a time that it is becoming increasingly clear that the engineering biology field is likely to have a very significant impact on the growth of the international bioeconomy and the drive towards low carbon. In addition, the field is predicted to have significant impact in biomedicine—for example, in vaccine development and the way in which vaccines are manufactured, with the contribution of Ginkgo Bioworks to the development of the Moderna vaccine for COVID-19 a timely demonstration of this. There are also many other areas where engineering biology is being applied to replace existing industrial processes and products and we are delighted to have published some of this work in the journal over the last year including the development of synthetic spider silk at The University of Manchester, which is already having applications in a number of areas, and the application of machine learning-driven protein engineering by LabGenius for computational drug discovery. At the end of the year, we also published the popular opinion piece ‘Synthetic biology, engineering biology, market expectation’ by Lionel Clarke, Co-Chair of the UK Engineering Biology Leadership Council and Director of BionerG, in which he discusses the differences between the terms ‘engineering biology’ and ‘synthetic biology’ and their role in the market ‘ecosystem’. In this first issue of our fifth volume, we are pleased to present a review of the optimisation of protein synthesis in cell-free systems—an area that has a number of applications; and the case study ‘Responsible Innovation: its role in an era of technological and regulatory transformation’. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the contributors to the journal: the authors from academia and industry for sharing their interesting developments and insights; the reviewers for the time they have taken to assess and provide valuable feedback on the submissions, and the Associate Editors for their work to uphold the high standards of the journal. We are very grateful for the efforts of all involved and we are continuing our work with our international editorial board to build the journal into a key source of information for all aspects of engineering biology. Engineering Biology has a deliberately wide scope so that it can capture not only original research, but also industrial developments (through contributions by industrial companies); opinion pieces on the grand challenges, policies, new projects and developments in the field; and invited mini reviews of progress in important areas. This year the publisher of Engineering Biology, The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), has partnered with Wiley to publish its journals, and we believe that this will give Engineering Biology an even greater outreach and range of readership. Please do get in touch with us at theiet_enb.office@wiley.com if you are interested in submitting an article or have an idea for a special issue. You can also find more information about the journal and how to submit at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/iet-enb. We are looking forward to working with the engineering biology community over the coming year to publish more of the exciting developments in this area.

Synthetic biology is a relatively young field, although it builds upon disciplines whose roots go back centuries. Recently, its practitioners have tended to move into the field out of interest or by chance, and come from a wide variety of backgrounds. It is also a very fast‐moving field; new protocols, laboratory equipment, computational facilities and algorithms are being developed at a rapid pace. Students who start studying synthetic biology at an undergraduate or postgraduate level will, in the course of their careers, work with technologies as yet undreamt of, and will do so mostly in the context of highly interdisciplinary teams. In this study, the authors identify some of the key areas required for the education of new synthetic biologists to equip them with both adequate background and sufficient flexibility to tackle these challenges and therefore to future‐proof synthetic biology.

This study introduces a new data model, based on the DICOM‐SB (see glossary of terms for definition of acronyms) standard for synthetic biology, that is capable of describing/incorporating the data, metadata and ancillary information from detailed characterisation experiments – to present DNA components (bioparts) in datasheets. The data model offers a standardised mechanism to associate bioparts with data and information about component performance – in a particular biological context (or a range of contexts, e.g. chassis). The data model includes the raw, experimental data for each characterisation run, and the protocol details needed to reliably reproduce the experiment. In addition, it provides metrics (e.g. relative promoter units, synthesis/growth rates etc.) that constitute the main content of a biopart datasheet. The data model has been developed to directly link to DICOM‐SB, but also to be compatible with existing data standards, e.g. SBOL and SBML. It has been implemented within the latest version of the API that enables access to the SynBIS information system. The work should contribute significantly to the current standardisation effort in synthetic biology. The standard data model for datasheets is seen as a necessary step towards effective interoperability between part repositories, and between repositories and BioCAD applications.

Collagen, which is often used in healthcare materials and biomedical research, is largely extracted from animal sources. Recombinant human collagen has the potential to be a promising alternative to animal collagen which has many shortcomings, including immunogenicity and lack of biocompatibility. Currently, recombinant human collagen has been expressed in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic hosts with varying degrees of success. One issue with recombinant collagen across all hosts is the inability to achieve full length collagen with native amounts of post‐translational modifications, prompting much exciting research in this direction. There has also been much effort in improving yield and biomimicry of recombinant collagen. This review discusses collagen structure and current methods for extracting animal collagen, before introducing current research in synthesising recombinant human collagen in various hosts, and finally highlighting challenges in the field.